As Tippers has already said, it was a fairly chilly Memwns yesterday evening.
The venue was the Rodney which is about 1/3 of the way up TMNH so an ascent from at least one direction was compulsory.
I arrived a bit late after making said ascent and after building DL's bike for next week. If he had bothered to turn up he could have seen a picture.
If I looked red it was the biting cold on the ride from home and the quick ascent to the Generals that was to blame. The Nounsley ford was negotiated without incident by using the path so it wasn't a ducking this time.
Also present, aside from the aforementioned Tippers, were Tomsk, Huggy, the Hustler, Carlos and Clem Fandango, Jiberjaber and the BFC. The Witham peloton was only three strong last night and everyone else had made solo missions to get there. Clem Fandango had travelled almost 7 miles apparently.
We sampled Shalford's Six Nations, Colchester Brewery's Brass Monkey and the Quaffers' Choice; Green Jack's The Drifter. The Rodney is a good old fashioned pub with a public bar and lounge bar (how often do you see that these days ?). Despite having a toilet wrecking antipodean with us, we were allowed to use the lounge bar.
There seemed to be a couple of discussions going on about fixed gears, hubs etc with Tomsk and the BFC providing expert advice to me and my fellow novices. Sadly, Jiberjaber had forgotten his cheque book again so no entry to the BCM...yet. There does seem to be mid-Essex peloton forming for the Shark in April though
It was a cold ride home afterwards and I had just got onto the driveway and unclipped when the streetlights went off. Not sure what the ruling is on that. Just under 80k for me last night which gave me a tiny insight into what Tomsk puts up with most weeks. Not sure I had even warmed up by morning.
Hopefully we can arrange a suitable venue and attendance for the elephant bike formation team ride soon.